Ten Years
by Kiko-chan X Kanda-sama
Summary: AU "On his left hand was the ring." Ten years and a ring marked Ryou and Bakura's love story. sorry paragraphing went wacko. One-shot. Fluffy.


_Author's note: The longest I've written so far. It looked a lot longer in Word, though. Read it, enjoy it, love it, review it. _^.^

**Disclaimers! **I don't own these characters! They belong to their seme/uke /.\\

* * *

**TEN YEARS**

Many people only remember Yami Bakura faintly. He moved regularly due to his father's job and never had a close relationship before. The 'friends' he made never kept in touch and his parents were never too close to him, leaving him very lonely.

I remember that day: it was a bright clear spring day. He stood in front of the class with a faraway look on his face while the teacher introduced him as the new transfer student.

_His hair is pretty_, I remember thinking.

I was determined to get to know him.

At lunch, I took my food with me and walked towards him in the courtyard.

"Hi, I'm Ryou. Can I sit here?" I asked.

He looked at me for a while, holding my gaze, before shrugging as an okay. I plopped down beside him and eagerly munch on my lunch.

I felt the need to break the ice and awkward silence between us so I said, "So, Bakura, why did you transfer?" When I realised there could be personal reasons, I quickly added, "You don't have to say if you don't want to tell me."

Bakura swallowed and replied, "My dad's job requires him to move around, sometimes even to other countries."

I nodded and continued, "Do you mind it?"

Bakura seemed stumped by my question so he took a while answering, "No, not really."

We sat in silence through the rest of lunch.

The next day, I introduced Bakura to my group of friends. Joey and Marik welcomed him and Yugi was being really nice. He is Yugi after all. I tried to include Bakura into our conversations and he slowly warmed up to us. That made me happy.

A week later, Bakura invited me over to his place. I was in awe of the giant mansion his family was staying at.

"Wow, cool house! How do you guys manage to get such a place?" I said.

"Dad's job's privileges," he explained.

The interior was amazing too: high ceilings, lovely furniture, and plush white carpet. Bakura led me up to his room and I found out that it was the smallest room in the entire building and was very different from the others. It had a very teenage boy-type of charm to it with its messiness.

"Sit," Bakura instructed, patting the spot next to him on the floor.

For the next hour or so, we chatted about all sorts of things: from school to artwork, from computers to aeroplanes.

"I still strongly believe that the tooth fairy exists," I argued.

Bakura chuckled and looked at me. And looked. It was more of a gaze actually and I looked back. For a while, neither of us moved: we just sat there looking at each other.

"You know, I've never felt this close to anyone before, Ryou," Bakura said, shattering the silence.

In his eyes, I saw a loneliness I have never known existed before. At that moment, my heart ached with emotions for him. He's never had any true friends and was always on his own. This mansion is so big, you need to walk for five minutes to see another person. No wonder he is not close with anyone. I have never thought a person so… human and vulnerable before.

"Ryou, I love you."

Bakura leaned in and kissed me. His tongue gently pried my mouth open and touched mine. At that very second, I knew I love him too. And I knew he knew.

We spend a lot of our days like this: hanging out at school with Joey, Marik and Yugi, then over to Bakura's place to 'do homework' when we mainly just kiss and talk. Occasionally, we would go for walks at night where we hold hands and not talk. Those moments were extra special to me. Because during those night walks, we would feel so close to each other. The kisses we share are just more special under the twinkling stars.

One night, when we were lying down on our favourite spot on the field Bakura said, "My favourite holiday is Christmas. Because we get gifts and you feel the tingle from the excitement and spirit." He turned and faced me; his eyes shone with love, happiness and expectancy. "I really want to spend Christmas here with you. I want to share my joy with you."

I took hold of his hands and squeezed. "We will. We will ride to the top of Tokyo Tower and look down at all the lights. And we'll make a wish at 11.59pm together."

He smiled and continued, "And we'll kiss like this."

He leaned in with his mouth slightly open. I greeted him with an eager tongue. We both knew that with that kiss, we had sealed the deal of our ideal Christmas.

On the last day of school, we went to the school dance together. I was crossdressing for the first time in a white t-shirt and denim shorts. I had my hair clipped up and falling down over the giant hair clip Joey's sister lent me like a waterfall. Bakura wolf-whistled loudly when he first saw me standing by the school gates waiting for him. Serenity made me put on a bit of lip gloss and my lip looked really good.

Bakura confirmed that fact by licking his lips after we kissed hello abs saying, "Mm… cherry, I like. You look amazing! Just be careful I don't start liking girls and ditch you."

I pinched his muscular arm playfully and giggled, "You dare. I will beat that new girlfriend of yours."

"I won't leave you; you will be my boyfriend forever. Till we get married that is." Bakura put his arm round my shoulder and gave me a quick squeeze. I felt light and floaty all over.

The dance was fun. My classmates ogled me and started hitting on me. That is until Bakura came and out his arm round my waist and introduced me as "my life partner, my soul mate and utterly mine". We did not really dance, as we do not know how to, so I just put me arms round his neck and his arms round my waist while we swayed to the music. Every so often, we would just lean on the remaining few inches in between our faces and kiss. Occasionally, we would start getting too passionate and someone would yell at us to "get a room". We still had heaps of fun as 'Bakura and his hot girlfriend'.

I went over to Bakura's place to stay the night after the dance.

"Will you two be okay? Are you sure you don't want to bring in another bed, Ryou?" asked his mother.

"Yes, he doesn't; my bed is giant enough to fit us two and three lions," Bakura said.

"If you say so, goodnight, boys."

Bakura locked the door after his mother left and looked at me with a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Oh no, what are you going to do to me?" I said, grinning.

"You will see…"

Bakura dived for my waist, knocking me onto the bed. He buried his face into my neck while lifting up my shirt. I giggled; I knew what he was going to do.

"You ready?" he looked up suddenly.

I searched his eyes and found what I wanted: undying love. I nodded and kissed his forehead.

After that amazing night where we both had the best time of our lives and I mean _the_ best time, we got even closer. We were inseparable and spent every waking moment together. Sometimes we would stay the night at the other's place. I knew we would last for the rest of eternity. However, there was just one fear I had.

On the summer solstice, Bakura broke the news I had been dreading for the past few months.

"I'm leaving two weeks from now."

My heart got three tons heavier and I said, "To where?", blindly and hopelessly wishing that it would be close by. I would even accept Hokkaido, just not…

"Out of Japan, to Spain. To Barcelona."

I started to cry, "How long? Will you come back?"

Bakura kept his back to me and stayed silent. I knew whatever I was hoping and wishing was futile. I started sobbing uncontrollably. Bakura turned round and walked towards me. He half-kneeled in front of me who was sitting on a tree stump and clutched my hands.

"Me moving does not mean I'm leaving you. I will still love you. Love you heaps and loads and for the rest of eternity. You'll still be my life partner, my soul mate and utterly mine." He dried my tears gently and kissed my forehead.

"We'll keep in touch right? You'll visit right?" I sobbed, the hiccups kicking in. Bakura stroked my cheek.

"How about we play a little game? I'll give you my address and we'll send each other mail. Tiny catch there, not allowed to write long soppy letters. We can only send items, photos, little notes. No writing on any detail of our lives. Just gifts and love notes, poems or songs. And no email, unless there's a change of address." I nod slowly. "We'll mail regularly. And ten years from now, at Christmas Day, we'll meet again at 10pm just outside the gift shop of Tokyo Tower. If we meet before that then great, if not we'll just meet on Christmas."

"And have our first Christmas together," I finished.

Bakura nodded and kissed my lips. I felt like I had to treasure each kiss even more now.

Our last two weeks flew by with us spending even the nights together – we managed to convince our parents to let me sleep in Bakura's room till he leaves – and a lot more kissing. I tried to make as much good memories as I can, I even started to scrapbook in the hope of remembering our times together. But time did no justice to us lovers and soon the day arrived.

I tried to be brave about it but I ended up crying when I woke up in the morning in Bakura's strong tanned arms. '_This is the last time I'll be able to wake like this' _I thought and began tearing up.

"No it won't. When we reconcile, I will marry you immediately and we can spend the rest of eternity together like this," mumbled a newly awake Bakura. I tilted my head back to kiss my beloved good morning who responded happily and deliciously. Their flight was at five so they would be going to the airport at two. I could not go to the airport because no one could drive me back. Joey, Marik and Yugi threw a massive party the day before as a farewell gift. My farewell gift was a similar scrapbook to the one I had been keeping.

"I'll give you mine at our spot after lunch," Bakura said.

After lunch, we went to our spot with the tree stump which is also where we lie and stargaze.

"This is our last time here together in a long while," I commented.

"I know," Bakura agreed.

We sat back to back on the tree stump for a few quiet minutes.

"Ryou," Bakura said suddenly, the silence broken, "you know I love you."

He walked over in front of me and kneeled down on one knee. In his hands was a ring box with two simple silver rings in it.

"Will you marry me?"

A tear slid down my cheek and Bakura saw that as a sign of approval. He slipped the one of them onto my ring finger on the left. Knowing what the other ring is for, I took it and slipped it onto Bakura's finger. He leaned in and kissed me tenderly.

"Now you will always be mine," he whispered.

"I love you," I whispered back.

"I love you too, Ryou."

That was ten years ago. Now I stand here alone watching people move around me, oblivious to my jitters. It was Christmas and a minute away from ten. Over the past decade, Bakura, my 'husband', and I sent mail to each other every month. He has now been to Spain, England, Belgium, America, Hong Kong and India. Also, for the past decade, I have waited for this day. I do not know for certain if Bakura would come but I trust him. I look at the ring, still on my finger, twinkling and telling me I will see my Bakura today. A watch beeped ten. My heart felt like it would jump out. Then, I saw him. Bakura was walking towards me, smiling. On his left hand was the ring.


End file.
